We recently connected with Eric Gibbons and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Eric, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?
I think it comes from my empathy with my students and those around me. I struggled as a child, we all do in our own ways. Sometimes I got the help I needed from my family, members of our community, and mentors who looked out for me. In turn, when I see a need, and am in a position to help, I will take action.
For example, every year I check with my small school’s cafeteria to see if there are any students with school lunch debt. I do not need nor want their names, but I have paid off their debt every year before the winter holidays. It is a small kindness that is anonymous. Students will only see their debt disappear.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m Eric Gibbons, an award-winning, Nationally Board Certified art educator, author, and creator behind Firehouse Publications and the Art Ed Guru community. I’ve spent more than 30 years teaching art in the United States, Japan, and Egypt, and my career has always centered on a single obsession: helping students and teachers rediscover the power of art as a deeply intellectual, expressive, and cross-disciplinary experience.
What excites me most is building resources that make high-quality art education accessible, contemporary, and culturally meaningful. Whether it’s my STEAM-aligned curriculum books, professional development workshops, handmade products, or global travel programs for students, everything I create is meant to empower creativity with structure, choice, and real-world connections. My classroom model, blending art history, student choice, STEM thinking, and authentic creative problem-solving, has now reached teachers worldwide through my blog, YouTube presence, and publications.
Beyond the classroom, I run Firehouse Publications, where I publish innovative K–12 art education resources used by teachers internationally. I also produce a growing line of handmade Japanese accordion-fold stamp books, a project inspired by my travels in Japan. They combine traditional Japanese textiles with thick watercolor paper and are designed to be beautiful, durable keepsakes for travel, temple stamps, sketching, or journaling. I’m also continuing to expand these offerings on Etsy, Amazon Handmade, and my own platform.
Creatively, I’ve recently released The Fox, The Falcon, & The Serpent, a historical-fiction novella set in Edo-era Japan. Writing it has opened new creative doors. It’s been energizing to bring my storytelling background, my love of Japan, and my visual-art sensibilities together into a new kind of project.
Looking ahead, I’m focused on expanding my professional development work for schools and districts, growing my handmade product line, and exploring licensing partnerships that allow my curriculum and creative tools to reach a global audience. I believe art education—in all its forms—should be smart, joyful, culturally engaged, and accessible to every learner, and that belief drives everything I build.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Looking back over my career as an educator, artist, author, and entrepreneur, three qualities have shaped my journey more than anything else: creative problem-solving, adaptability, and generosity of knowledge.
1. Creative Problem-Solving
Art has taught me that creativity isn’t just about making things, it’s about improving things. Throughout my career, whether I was designing STEAM-aligned art curricula, writing books to fill gaps in art education, or developing professional development workshops, my biggest leaps forward came from identifying a need and creating a thoughtful solution.
Advice: Focus your creativity on real problems that real people have. When you build with purpose, your work gains both meaning and momentum.
2. Adaptability Across Cultures, Roles, and Media
My journey hasn’t followed a straight line. I’ve taught in the U.S., Japan, and Egypt; I’ve run a gallery; I’ve published dozens of books; I’ve built a handmade product line; and recently, I’ve even stepped into fiction writing and visual storytelling. Each chapter required me to rethink what I knew and be willing to grow in unexpected directions. Adaptability kept me moving forward rather than getting stuck in one identity.
Advice: Let your path evolve. Try things that feel unfamiliar. The skill or experience that becomes your “signature strength” may come from the most unexpected place.
3. Generosity of Knowledge & Community Building
Much of what people know as “ArtEdGuru” grew simply because I shared what I learned, openly, consistently, and without fear that giving would diminish my value. My curriculum resources, blog, workshops, videos, and books exist to help educators work smarter and feel supported. That generosity built trust, and trust built opportunities I never could have planned for.
Advice: Don’t hold everything close. Share your process, your insights, and your mistakes. Community grows around transparency, and that community will shape and strengthen your journey.
If there’s a thread that ties all three together, it’s this:
Create with purpose, stay flexible as your life and interests evolve, and give freely—you’ll be surprised how often the world gives back.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
My biggest challenge right now is navigating a major life transition: I plan to retire from classroom teaching in about three years, and I want to shift into a new chapter built around publishing, writing, and creative entrepreneurship. After more than three decades in education, I’m excited for the next chapter—but transition always comes with uncertainty.
I have several passions I want to pursue more fully: expanding my publishing work through Firehouse Publications, writing more novellas and novels, growing my handmade Japanese stamp-book line, and using my online platforms to reach a broader audience of educators, artists, and travelers. I also have decades of my own artwork, literally an attic full, that I hope to catalog, archive, and finally make available for sale. In many ways, retirement won’t be “slowing down” at all; it will simply shift my energy into projects that have been waiting patiently for their turn.
The challenge is balancing ambition with sustainability. I want this next chapter to be both fulfilling and financially comfortable. To resolve this, I’m planning intentionally now: strengthening my publishing infrastructure, organizing my archives, building my online presence, and putting financial systems in place so that when I step out of the classroom, I’m stepping into a life that feels both secure and creatively alive.
My hope is that retirement becomes less of an ending and more of a return—back to writing, making, teaching in new ways, and sharing my work with a global community.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.firehousepublications.com
- Instagram: @artedguru
- Facebook: @artedguru
- Twitter: @ArtEdGuru
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@artedguru
- Other: www.artedguru.com, www.JapanStampBooks.com
Image Credits
Group image is me Tim Lin (Photographer & writing partner for many of our books) My old Japanese Roomate Shigeki Murakawa and a reenactor at the Castle in Tottori Japan.
